Migrant camp horror blaze
Did Greek island fire start in protest over lockdown?
THOUSANDS of families fled for their lives as a devastating fire ripped through Europe’s largest migrant camp.
Aid workers described scenes of ‘absolute chaos’ as 13,000 men, women and children poured out of the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos to escape the flames. There were no reports of injuries.
Greece’s prime minister yesterday suggested the blaze – which started in three places at once – may have been started deliberately as tensions rose in the camp over lockdown measures following a coronavirus outbreak.
The country yesterday declared a state of emergency and scrambled boats and aircraft to transfer more than 400 lone children to the mainland.
The EU said it was helping and called on nations to take in a share of the displaced children and families. Lockdown rules have hampered efforts to send potentially affected adults elsewhere.
It is believed the fire, which broke out on Tuesday night, started in a sprawling shanty town which adjoins the official government-run camp.
Most of the 2,000 to 3,000 living in the state-run facility will be able to return, but those living in the makeshift village had their possessions destroyed and they were last night facing a night sleeping on the streets.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation last night, but Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis suggested it could have been started deliberately as a backlash to the Covid-19 restrictions.
Unrest has been growing in the camp after 35 migrants and refugees tested positive for coronavirus. Migration minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos said: ‘The combination of migration and the pandemic in these conditions is creating an exceptionally demanding situation.’ He said it appeared the blaze broke out ‘as the result of the discontent’ of some camp residents over lockdown measures imposed after a Somali man who returned after being granted asylum tested positive for the virus.
The makeshift part of the camp is in an olive grove which has become a tinder box during the summer. This, along with high winds, meant the fire spread quickly. Mr Mitsotakis said the authorities were now setting up an emergency camp on the island and that all those displaced would be ‘housed in suitable tents’.
Regional fire chief Konstantinos Theofilopoulos said the fire started in three places in quick succession, and firefighters were hampered from tackling the blaze by protesting camp residents.
The UN’s refugee body, the UNHCR, said it was also setting up an emergency facility to house those whose tents and shacks were destroyed.
Faris Al-Jawad, an aid worker for charity Médecins Sans Frontières, told the Mail: ‘About 12,000 people have left or were evacuated and there are just a few zones of the camp that weren’t completely destroyed.
‘Some people have returned to try and salvage their things that were in tents and whatever didn’t get completely eviscerated.
‘The vast majority that were living there are just lined up along the street with no direction or clarity about where they need to go.
‘So not only do you have 12,000 people without shelter and help, but among them you have people who are high-risk to Covid-19 because of their health conditions or because they are pregnant. It’s all absolute chaos.
‘People have been hemmed in like animals and this is clearly an indirect consequence of the inhumane containment policies.’